Judges 5:6

Shamgar the son of Anath See on Judges 3:31. It is extraordinary that the period of the oppression (in the days ofas Judges 15:20) should be dated by Shamgar, if he was the deliverer referred to in Judges 3:31, and by Jael who slew the leader of the Canaanite army. We have seen reason to question the account of Shamgar in Judges 3:31; the context of the present passage clearly implies that he was not a deliverer but a foreign oppressor, perhaps the predecessor of Sisera. Jael must be the same person as the heroine of Judges 5:24 ff.; but she belongs to the time, not of the oppression, but of its termination. When once Shamgar had been treated by late interpreters as an Israelite champion (Judges 3:31), the words in the days of Jaelwere probably inserted to mark the period more exactly.

the high ways were unoccupied lit. -the ways ceased" (Judges 5:7), i.e. were disused, a doubtful meaning; render, with a slight change in the Hebr. pronunciation, the caravans ceased marg. The oppression had put a stop to all intercourse and trade, cf. Judges 9:25; travellers were driven to use circuitous routes. The next line runs, in parallelism with -caravans," and walkers by paths walked by crooked ways; the word waysis repeated incorrectly from the previous line; it is sufficiently implied by the plur. adj. crooked, as in Psalms 125:5.